Here is an excellent blog post from Duncan McNicholl, an aid worker with Engineers without Borders Canada, that explores how photos taken in developing countries can be used to portray people in very different ways depending on the photographer’s intent. The entire post is well worth reading, but in particular this paragraph seems to hit the nail on the head:

The truth is that the development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive.  Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public.  I found it outrageous that such an incomplete and often inaccurate story was being so widely perpetuated by the organizations on the ground – the very ones with the ability and the responsibility to communicate the realities of rural Africa accurately.